CASE STUDY - Baylor College of Medicine

Baylor College of Medicine Offers Backup Care to Differentiate From Other Local Employers and Emerge as an Employer of Choice

Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine (BCM - www.bcm.edu) in Houston, the only private medical school in the Greater Southwest, is recognized as a premiere academic health science center and is known for excellence in education, research and patient care. For 2008, U.S. News & World Report ranked BCM 10th overall among the nation's top medical schools for research and 11th for primary care. BCM also is listed 13th among all U.S. medical schools for National Institutes of Health funding, and 2nd in the nation in federal funding for research and development in the biological sciences at universities and colleges by the National Science Foundation.

Challenge
BCM, one of the nation’s elite medical schools, set a goal of being one of the “100 Best” places to work and then completed an internal “operational excellence” program to assess what how to attain that recognition. Committees across the college examined what changes should occur and several committees recommended that the college establish stronger programs to address work-life concerns. The college determined that a work-life focus would support operational excellence efforts and also help BCM, an institution in the Texas Medical Center, attract top talent in Houston’s competitive employment market.

Solution
Backup care emerged as part of BCM’s new work-life strategy and the benefit is viewed as a dual-purpose solution; the program helps employees balance work-life concerns, plus it reduces absenteeism and increases productivity. “We wanted to enable our employees to come to work when they needed to,” says Barbara Naples, Senior Director of Benefits at Baylor College of Medicine. “If they had a childcare or eldercare emergency, they needed the support to meet their work demands without the extra stress of having to figure out how to get care for their dependents.”

Previously the college offered emergency center-based childcare, but it was limited to healthy children under age 13 and only available during normal business hours. After researching a more robust solution, the college selected Work Options Group to begin offering its Backup Care Options program in July 2007 because the program covers individuals of all ages, at any time of the day or night, whether they are healthy or mildly ill. “It’s very important that Work Options Group is available 24 hours of the day, every day of the year,” says Naples. “We are about to build a new hospital and that aspect of the backup care program will become even more important as we staff a hospital with nurses and clinicians working around the clock.”

Results
Offering the Backup Care Options program helped BCM achieve several key objectives:

• Emerge as employer of choice and boost recruitment efforts
• “We have already had recruits say they were very interested in Baylor College of Medicine because we are offering backup care and other work-life programs,” says Naples.
• Reduce absenteeism and boost productivity
• “The backup care program fits perfectly into our work-life strategy to help employees balance their personal and work life,” comments Naples. “It helps employees manage the stresses of having to deal with family emergencies, plus it allows them to stay in the workplace so their productivity stays up and absenteeism stays down. While we haven’t been offering this program for that long, we’ve already seen it being utilized by a variety of individuals.” Employees used 1,146 hours of backup care during the first six months the program was available.
• Address a broad range of caregiving concerns – beyond center-based child care
• Surprisingly, Naples needed to use backup care on the very first day the program was available. “I never thought I would need to take advantage of the new backup care program; my parents have both passed away and my children are in college, but my 18-year-old daughter had an emergency tonsillectomy the day before the program rolled out,” says Naples. “I was nervous about leaving her alone, so I arranged to have care provided in my home during her recovery and I was able to give six presentations at work that day to announce the new backup care benefit. It relieved my stress level. I could go to work with peace of mind and that was priceless.” Naples was not alone in using the program for in-home care – 72% of the backup care provided during the first six months was in-home and the remaining 28% was center-based. She was also among the 16% of employees who used the program for adult/eldercare during the first six months.